Dygdala Zofia

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"I believed that everything had to succeed" - the Story of Zofia Dygdała

During the German occupation, Zofia Komperda (after the war Dygdała) lived in Przemyśl. In 1942, when the Germans established a ghetto in the city, she helped her Jewish friend, Łucja Meister, and her brother Bertold, known as "Tolek". During the Holocaust, Zofia organised false documents and places of refuge for them. They changed their hiding places several times due to the danger they faced.


"I felt such compassion for those whose lives were threatened just for being Jewish”, recalled Zofia Dygdała.

During the war, the woman, who was barely twenty-years-old, dedicated all her strength to saving those who were being persecuted. For many years, the Komperda family had been friend with the Jewish Meister family who, in 1942, were facing the threat of being relocated into the ghetto.

At her aunt's house in the countryside, Zofia organised a hiding place for her school friend Łucja, the youngest daughter of the Meister family. For her brother Bertold, she miraculously obtained "Aryan papers" under the name "Władysław Jach". Bertold survived the war, in part due to Zofia’s father employing him in his business.

Fate permitted Zofiai to succeed in also saving two Jewish girls, who were found on the streets of Przemyśl. She later entrusted them into the care of kind people:

"At the time, I was nineteen-years-old and I believed that everything had to succeed”, she said years later.

On 11 August 1992, the Yad Vashem Institute honoured Zofia Dygdała with title of Righteous Among the Nations. In 2007, Polish Presidenty Lech Kaczyński awarded her the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

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Bibliography

  • Archiwum Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, Dział Dokumentacji Odznaczeń Yad Vashem; Dokumenty Zofii Dygdała, sygn. 349/24/1664
  • Gutman Israel red. nacz., Księga Sprawiedliwych wśród Narodów Świata, Ratujący Żydów podczas Holocaustu